27 June 2011

KL Standard Chartered Marathon 2011

Update: The results are out on the KL-Marathon webpage and I did the 10km in 1 hour 35 min and 23 seconds. Official timing is 1 hour 44 min and 34 seconds. It took me 9 min to get from the back to pass the starting line. I am ranked 2948 in my category. Wah super far down. :)

Sunday 26th of June 2011 came and went really fast. About 4 or 5 months back, I decided that I would sign up for the 10km run for the Standard Chartered Marathon as a motivation for me to keep running and lose weight. In that 5 months I did managed to increase my daily run from a pitiful 1.6km to about 3km until about 3 or 4 weeks back when I sprained my ankle bad. Actually in the space of about 2 months I sprained my ankle twice.

It wasn't looking so good for me for the 10km run. However since I chickened out of the run last year, this year I was determined to go for it. It wasn't so much of a run for me but more of a 10km fast walk. I was determined to finish by walking the entire 10km.

The day started out at 4.15am when we woke up to get ready for the run. Around 4.50am Ee Von reached my house and we set off to get Steph and breakfast. Steph prepared us a very hearty breakfast, snack and refreshments consisting of PB and J sandwich (3 triangles each), nicely packed into double locking IKEA ziplock bags, tins of Milo and bananas. She even prepared snack for after the race which were Special K muesli bars and frozen 100 plus. Big thanks to Steph for preparing food for us, the PB and J sandwich, banana and Milo kept me going throughout the race. The 100 plus really helped after the race and even after 3 or 4 hours out of the freezer, it was still nice and cold when we went to get it after the race.

Unfortunately we had some issues looking for parking as the place we intended to park was already blocked off and while looking for parking we actually went as far as Segambut because we took a wrong turn. We finally managed to park near Petaling Street and there were quite a few people who found the same parking around the same time as us. It was maybe about 2km walk to the starting point for the 10km run and we actually saw the 21km race being flagged off. There were a heck alot of people running the 21km. It was pretty crazy.

After the 21km runners all left, we decided to head to the toi toi to express ourselves one last time before the crowd came back and massacre the toi toi. After toi toi break, we did some cam whoring while we were still fresh...

We really had the "You can do it" attitude before the race. We will have to see what happens after the race. We finally reached the starting point of the 10km race and it started shortly after. Just before we started, the heavens started to sprinkle some rain. It was a gloomy overcast sky and it really looked like it was going to rain on our parade. As we were flagged off, it start to drizzle and all I could think was that is it man, we will be drenched.

Lucky for us that the skies actually cleared up and because of the gloomy overcast skies, it protected us from the burning rays of the sun till close to 9pm. This is what is looks like half way through the race. This picture is courtesy of Steph.

Everyone still super semangat to run and this picture is very cool. Lots of green people running, with a big arrow on the road pointing to the twin building of Le Meridien and KL Hilton.

I walked pretty much 98% of the way and only ran a little towards the end of the race. My ankle guard actually came off about 3-4km and I had to remove it because it was restricting blood flow to my right feet. All throughout my walk, all I was thinking about was, I want to get back in time to get my finisher medal. I do not care what happens as long as I get my medal, it would make this "walk" a success. When I saw the 5km mark, it actually motivated me to go even faster. I came in I think in about 1 hour 35 min. The timing for the 10km was kinda not working but the timing on the 21km was 2 hours 35 min when I came in and they were flagged off 1 hour before us. Each of us were giving timing devices which we loop on our shoes.

We should be getting our official timing from the organisers within 24 hours of the race. Unfortunately the results aren't in yet. All of us were glad we finished our race and we were all on a high after the race.

Luckily, I also managed to get the medal.

Other then the little hiccup with finding parking in the morning, the entire run was very well organised. I applaud the organiser for really making sure everything was catered for. Each of the drink stations were well stocked with water and they had maybe 10 tables for runners to get their water. They had enough toi toi at the start finish line and even throughout the route. The best thing was on my final KM back, we actually passed the starting line for the 10km and I popped into one of the toi toi to relieve myself. To my surprise it didn't stink at all. It has a pleasant grape smell in the toi toi that I went.

I have to say well done to the girls (Amy, Steph and Ee Von) as well, all of them made it back in good time and it looks like they enjoyed themselves very much.

The Internal Me

Welcome to Hog's Thoughts. This page is dedicated for me to display my complains, my feelings and most important to share the things that is happening in my life. I try to be as funny and as true as possible in my blogs. That is the whole point anyway, I want to make people laugh, forget about their stress for that one second in life and enjoy themselves. So come in enjoy yourself and hope you leave this site stress free or at least slightly less stressed